Reviving my laptops cdrom – 2703 days old

[Lyran]

Ok well ive had this old dell latitude CPx -H500 laptop for arround 4-5 years now.

Its been through a lot but ive only ever had to replace the power lead and the keyboard.

Now in the last year the cdrom has been deteriating. Not reading cd-r disks that all my other computers can read fine taking ages to even view data on disks, making very very weird noises not booting from cdroms apart from retail boot disks like windows xp disk or redhat 9 that i got in a book and some other problems like when running media from disks reading errors half way thru or very choppy playing.

So is there a way i can like revitalise this cdrom without opening up the laptops panel and going into the computer and messing with shit that i know NOTHING about or buying some expensive repair kit or another cdrom (plus fitting costs)

[Grogan]

You can try buying one of those CDROM cleaning disks, but chances are that CDROM drive is on its way out. That is how it starts... first problems reading certain CDR disks, then all CDR disks then some pressed CDs stop reading.

[TJM4FUN]

cheapest alt if you have usb is to get a usb external cdrom.
pickup a cheap 5.25 enclosure and a cheap cdrw and away you go....

while cleaning the drive and especially the lens on the head may help with a commercial cleaning disc,
trying to clean the lense manually can ruin the drive if not done carefully.